For Connecticut’s economy to thrive, legislators need to figure out how to leverage our existing infrastructure to move people, goods and services around the state. The future is in bits and bytes. So it is nice to see when at least one legislator gets it, and doubly so when it’s a Norwalk legislator. Chris Perone has been pitching the 21st century future to his fellow legislators in Hartford for quite some time. This is the latest effort.

From a press release:
REP. PERONE ANNOUNCES FEDERAL FUNDS FOR BROADBAND MAPPING

State Representative Chris Perone (D-Norwalk) announced Connecticut will
receive $1.8 million of federal stimulus money to increase broadband
availability.

“This is very good news for the state of Connecticut because it will
further increase broadband access for all its citizens, benefit existing
businesses, and demonstrate to companies looking to move to Connecticut
that our state is developing the IT infrastructure that they are looking
for,” Rep. Perone stated.

The Connecticut Broadband Internet Coordinating Council (CBICC) applied,
along with the Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC) for federal
stimulus dollars to map out and develop our statewide broadband
capability.

Rep. Perone added, “To remain competitive, I believed that Connecticut
needed to have a plan to expand broadband deployment and adoption, and
to that end I introduced a bill to create the Broadband Internet
Coordinating Council (the “BICC”) in 2007.”

Notification came today from the National Telecommunications and
Information Administration (NTIA) that CBICC and DPUC’s efforts yielded
$1.3 million to develop an interactive statewide map displaying the
availability of broadband Internet service and an additional $500,000
for developing a state broadband plan.

Rep. Perone is Vice Chair of the Finance Committee and a member of the
Commerce and Transportation Committees.